3/27/2015: Just kidding. Gleason doesn’t think bloggers are journalists, and while he ran the process he wasn’t a judge. The real award announcement is here.

The post below describes a 2013 panel at the Oregon Society of Professional Journalists with myself and former Journalism Dean Tim Gleason, who has actively worked to make it more difficult for journalists to get public records from UO. The comments to this post are pretty interesting, including an exchange between myself and UO professor of advertising Deb Morrison, who tried to come to Gleason’s defense. Here’s a summary:

Tim Gleason worked with Dave Hubin’s administrative advisory group to make it more difficult for journalists to obtain public records from UO. With the rape allegations cover-up, we are now seeing the result in the form of serious damage to our university’s reputation.

Here are the comments Prof. Morrison made on my post about the session on public records with Tim Gleason at the SPJ meeting at Allen Hall in November, which is linked in the above post, along with my response then.

1) Morrison, commenting as “Unknown”:

Gleason continues to have great support amongst our sojc faculty and industry because of the work he’s done. He’s shown vision and integrity at a time when we needed it most. So stop this nonsense, UOM. Your being asked to speak to the SPJ was disappointing (at the least) and wrongheaded. What you do is nowhere near journalism.

Your value as leader and truth caller has been consistently devalued. Why? Snark, silliness, miscommunication, untruths, slander, lies. It’s meant to degrade and confuse. No one except your posse cares about what you churn out because the agenda is you, not the truth. That’s sad. And most emphatically, it’s not journalism.

2) Morrison, commenting as Morrison:

I hate anonymous posting. It’s probably the lowest point of humanity. So…
I’m UNKNOWN above. I don’t write press releases and this does not call for one. And I don’t want a long harangue with you and your followers, Bill.

But here’s the reality: this is the type of stuff that’s wrong. Gleason is not hostile to Freedom of Information and your post and the subsequent comments imply he is. The crap you’ve said about him and others is unfair and unethical.

That’s what you do: you make work of implications and gossip and innuendo and then you all chew on it as if it’s fact. I’ve praised you very publicly before when you were asking hard questions, especially around the Lariviere issues. I’ve worked with you on SAIL and honor you for that.

But as I noted in the other post, all the strong voice is negated when there’s constant misleading or simply vicious information like this post. The stuff you say about people, the attempts to disembowel and ruin careers, the side remarks that you and dog and old dog and anonymous, etc all peck to death has no value except as venom. You have your followers. But so many (most of whom are not politically active or in the JH culture) are simply turned off by this and see it as ruining the culture and opportunity at this University. There are better ways to solve problems and make things happen.

This is an attempt to be honest. I hope it will be accepted as such.

3) My response:

To Deb Morrison:

This post was my effort to respond to the claims Tim Gleason made at the SPJ conference regarding his history of support for public records and transparency. I thought his claims did not reflect the actual history at UO, where he has actively tried to make it more difficult for reporters and others to get public records.

I have more documentation on that I could post. But I think the post has made that point. Re-reading it, I don’t see anything excessively personal it it, and in contrast there is plenty of substantive information, facts, documentation, and an accurate portrayal of what Gleason said at the session, and how it was received by the reporters present.

In contrast, your comment on this post says:

“But here’s the reality: this is the type of stuff that’s wrong. Gleason is not hostile to Freedom of Information and your post and the subsequent comments imply he is. The crap you’ve said about him and others is unfair and unethical.”

I don’t recall seeing you at the session. Your comment does not include any documentation for your claim that Gleason is not hostile to public records access, or any information that conflicts with anything in my post. Your comment does include a personal attack on me, but you also don’t provide any support for that either.

Obviously Gleason are I are not on friendly terms. You can see this quite clearly in my live-blogging about the union bargaining sessions, or in the “Open Letter” that he helped write, accusing me of being “anti-university”. At least I think he helped write it, UO’s public records office won’t tell me unless I pay them hundreds of dollars in fees, and Gleason won’t answer my questions about it. This is remarkably similar to nasty anonymous blog comments – except those don’t come on official UO letterhead!

Regardless, I don’t think you attended any of those 42 union bargaining meetings either, so you don’t seem to be in a good position to do more than give an opinion about the origins of that mutual animosity either.

That said, I’m happy to provide a place for you to write about me, since I think that opinions, even uninformed and nasty ones, can be an important form of civil speech.

Rob Moseley had to cover a Ducks game, so Tim Gleason, who just stepped down as UO’s Journalism School Dean, gamely took his place on the Covering Higher Education panel. He did not seem to be happy to be on the podium with a blogger.

Samantha Matsumoto talked about the Emerald’s coverage of sexual harassment at UO. An interesting story on rules requiring mandatory reporting, by her and Sami Edge is here. The mandatory reporting issue is a tough one, since it tends to reduce students’ willingness to discuss harassment and assault with UO employees.

Gleason went last. He started off listing his resume, starting with his work as a reporter and photojournalist in Long Island in the 1980’s. Ever curious, I checked google news archives, but couldn’t find any of his stories.

This was followed with a long complaint from Gleason about having an uninformed student reporter show up in his office asking questions, without having done the background research. A reporter in the audience responded by talking about how she found other people could be extremely helpful with difficult stories, if a reporter was up front about needing help. A lively discussion ensued.

Gleason then went on to attempt to give a defense of UO’s record on public records. The professional journalists in the audience seemed pretty skeptical. One said that they had worked with many state agencies, but had never found one that was as secretive as UO. I pointed out that OSU was generally more transparent that UO, several reporters agreed.

Another professional reporter raised additional questions about UO’s compliance, explaining to Gleason that yes, Oregon’s law allowed exemptions, but did not require them. I echoed this point. Gleason’s response was that UO followed the law, and explained the reasons for the redactions it made. I told him that they didn’t – the PR office’s explanations were nothing more than boilerplate.

On that point, here are some of my notes from the 3/27/2013 meeting of the PR AAG committee, including Gleason’s comments. These are not verbatim, but I think accurately portray the gist of the discussion:

Fee waivers:

Special Assistant to the President Dave Hubin: I believe we are operating within the law, which says “may waive”. But the optics are not good.

Public Records Officer Lisa Thornton: We apply the three-part test on page 20 which gives us broad discretion to delay and frustrate, and we drive a truck through that.

Journalism Dean Tim Gleason: Explain.

Thornton: I apply my judgement to ask if the citizen’s of Eugene would benefit from reading about this. (My god). Q: Do you explain your denials?

Thornton: No.

AD Spokesperson Pinten: Can’t you have drop down boxes or something?

Thornton: We google the requester to see what they are up to. (My god).

Even Gleason sees this is trouble: “It’s problematic to give you this discretion.”

UO Law Professor John Bonine: Oregon law was based on federal law, which contrasts public benefit with private benefit. Commercial is out. If it’s not just for yourself, it’s public benefit.

Gleason: Back on his thing about the burden on the institution. Bonine: First test for public interest, then ask if the extent of those benefits exceeds the cost.

Thornton: So I’m going to have to do benefit-cost analysis? Can I hire an economist

Bonine: Not only that, I want you to put your decision and reasons on the web. Provides guidance to requestors, reduces your unbounded authority.

Thornton: We do have discussions and back and forth with requesters about public interest.

Gleason’s response at today’s session was that reporters should file a petition with the DA, if they didn’t like UO’s redactions.

He then went off on RG Senior Editor Christian Wihtol’s piece today, reporting that UO had paid $24K to sex columnist Dan Savage to give a public talk. He argued that the piece lacked context, for example about what other speakers were paid. I pointed out that it had taken UO a long time just to respond to the request for the Savage contract, and that UO would have delayed longer, and probably charged a lot of money, for a more general request about fees paid other speakers. Gleason did not give much of an answer.

At this point the discussion about UO and public records heated up. I said that UO was still refusing to give student-journalists fee waivers, and wouldn’t even let them use their own funds to buy the public records. The Student Press Law Center story on this is here:

The Commentator was prepared to pay for the records, but on June 12, the school’s Associated Students leadership adviser told him in an email that the publication could not use its own money to pay for the records. The Commentator is funded through student fees, advertising revenue and private donations, according to its website.

“We officially heard back from General Counsel,” Consuela Perez-Jefferis wrote to Ekblad. “They confirmed that the incidental fee money can’t be used for an outside party’s public records requests because incidental fee money is state money.”

I talked with a SPLC reporter who was trying to do a follow-up on this a month or so ago. She couldn’t get anyone at UO to answer her calls.

I then claimed that UO had *never* given a public-interest fee waiver to a journalist. A professional journalist in the audience said actually that wasn’t true, he’d once got a waiver from Melinda Grier, 10 years or so back. And now that I think about it, the UO Senate Transparency Committee once convinced Liz Denecke to refund $203 in fees to a UO student, for documents about the ORI building. So I should have said that UO hadn’t done this since the days of Lariviere.

Gleason then said that UO waived many fees for simple requests. I asked again if UO had recently waived fees for a substantial request by a reporter working for a regular newspaper on a story of public importance. Gleason didn’t have an answer.

UOMatters has provided one big service. I had no idea that my colleagues were as mean and narrow minded as displayed on these pages. It has helped me to decide to turn to the dark side. Teach my few classes, never volunteer, exercise more, go home early and spend time with my kids. Sit back with tenure and wait for myunion sponsored raises. Maybe I will get an offer from a real University, tell then, enjoy the silence.

I encourage everyone to read Derek Bok’s book: “Our Nations Underachieving colleges” (published in 2009).Its not clear to me that there are many “real” universities left. Most of us are legacy based and offer degreesby borkering courses. We have a gen ed requirement which is hopelessly outdated and largely irrelevantbut we pride ourselves on teaching “critical thinking” without devising a way for assessing if we can accomplish that goal. The UO is no worse or better than most institutions in this regard.

However, what I think operationally differentiates the UO from others is that the notion of “common purpose”seems to elude us. Instead, all units are pitted against each other in some nested zero sum game so thatwe can try to get a marginally larger piece of a thin pie. The belief is that this will create entreprenurialship (or whatever the right word is). My experience is that this contributes to alienation more than anything else.

Now that we’re discussing UOM’s value to the institution, let me add that the union and those interested in their negotiating efforts benefited tremendously from UOM’s contribution. By extension, you all owe UOM some of your paycheck. (Think of UOM every time you spend part of that, will you?)

Any good UO Matters does (or at least has done since Lariviere), is outweighed by the damage he causes to people and their reputations. Or have people forgotten when he *somehow* got an exam from a blind professor and started spraying bullets?

Fishwrapper sez: In response to “Unknown” way up near the top of this page, who typed, “What you do is nowhere near journalism,” I must chuckle.

What UOM/Harbaugh does is exactly the definition of journalism, even within the quotidian context of what passes these days for same. Indeed, this blog provides a public service, and a public discourse, that is unique and effective in raising issues that are otherwise unheard.

Is there, at times, a high chaff:kernel ratio? Indeed, there is, but no more so than in the opinion pages of the bastions of prizewinning journals most might imagine when considering the work with a capital “J” – Times, Post, Herald, etc. And the opinion page is is as important in the context of journalism as is the crime blotter (curiously, this blog appears to offer both services…)

It must be galling indeed, for “real” journalists, or perhaps even more so for those who merely profess such, for one from outside the anointed ranks to have been accorded any kind of recognition by a professional society – but here’s the thing: Journalism is; it is not what someone says it is.

Ben Franklin was not a journalist – he was a printer, one who happened to set type with his own words from time to time.

Go hang your own ass out in front of the public eye, and publish your own damn blog, and show us some “real journalism” of your own.

Fishwrapper sez: I find the process of institutionalizing news media organizations by the state to be one of the higher forms of irony. But, one must do what one must do to protect one’s ass when hanging it out there, I suppose; and First Amendment fights are a lot more expensive and painful than the institutionalizing hoops held by “the man.”

Ah, the old “start your own blog” defense. I used the same argument with my men’s club, “start your own club”, stop spoiling my fun! Show us how it is done, stop complaining! There are all very weak arguments. Is it too much to ask for a higher standard? Or is UOMatters the best we can do? If you wonder where all the idiotic admins come from, look around here.

And now Harbaugh is equivalent to Ben Franklin? must increase med amount…

Let me offer a condensed version of how this will work out. While some of us are disgusted by the childish style to this blog, it is not going to go away. For Harbaugh has much of his ego tied to this venue, and the fan club truly sees this forum as needed to balance the evil admins (just like Fox News, fair and balanced). A minority would like to see a more respectful, academic tone, but who wants to be seen as an ally to Johnson Hall when one calls for restraint. Those of us who believe this blog has gone too far have been told to stop reading and go away. Which perhaps is good advice, but will cause the discussion to spiral into deeper paranoia without a dissenting viewpoint. And I will note, that when you invoke 1st Amendment rights as a defense for your bathroom wall of jokes and insults, you might want to cut back on the meds. You may now return to your regular programming.

There is a simple solution: start a competing blog. Set the tone and style. Show us it it’s supposed to be done. However, you’d first have to think there is any value in blogging beyond complaining, which means you couldn’t have connections to the SOJC

This post was my effort to respond to the claims Tim Gleason made at the SPJ conference regarding his history of support for public records and transparency. I thought his claims did not reflect the actual history at UO, where he has actively tried to make it more difficult for reporters and others to get public records.

I have more documentation on that I could post. But I think the post has made that point. Re-reading it, I don’t see anything excessively personal it it, and in contrast there is plenty of substantive information, facts, documentation, and an accurate portrayal of what Gleason said at the session, and how it was received by the reporters present.

In contrast, your comment on this post says:

“But here’s the reality: this is the type of stuff that’s wrong. Gleason is not hostile to Freedom of Information and your post and the subsequent comments imply he is. The crap you’ve said about him and others is unfair and unethical.”

I don’t recall seeing you at the session. Your comment does not include any documentation for your claim that Gleason is not hostile to public records access, or any information that conflicts with anything in my post. Your comment does include a personal attack on me, but you also don’t provide any support for that either.

Obviously Gleason are I are not on friendly terms. You can see this quite clearly in my live-blogging about the union bargaining sessions, or in the “Open Letter” that he helped write, accusing me of being “anti-university”. At least I think he helped write it, UO’s public records office won’t tell me unless I pay them hundreds of dollars in fees, and Gleason won’t answer my questions about it. This is remarkably similar to nasty anonymous blog comments – except those don’t come on official UO letterhead!

Regardless, I don’t think you attended any of those 42 union bargaining meetings either, so you don’t seem to be in a good position to do more than give an opinion about the origins of that mutual animosity either.

That said, I’m happy to provide a place for you to write about me, since I think that opinions, even uninformed and nasty ones, can be an important form of civil speech.

“^ You should see the inflammatory comments I write about you that don’t make it through UOM’s filter. Incredibly offensive stuff.”

It does say up above that this blog is moderated for trolls and you are admitting, it seems, to being quite trollish in your comments. I guess you represent the childish quotient that keeps getting mentioned?

I’ve come to the conclusion that UOM readers are suffering Uncle Bernie Withdrawal Syndrome with the bye week and are fixated on blog conflict instead. Thankfully, you only have to wait until Thursday for the Stanford comparisons!

Thanks for your post Deb. I agree with everything you say–as well as with both Anons after you. A blog can open the door to open and honest discourse, or slam the door by calling everyone who disagrees with UO bashers as ‘trolls’. I would love a blog that offers a space that allows for a variety of opinions where everyone is treated with respect. And where people weren’t afraid to sign their posts.

You want a UO oriented blog done your way with your perspective and your idea of respect, maturity and proper opinionating … so when are you going to start one? Then the other 3 or 4 people who are SO unhappy with UOM BUT who still read and readily comment here trying to force him to do it their way can have a place to feel superior and part of the ‘true believers’. Baaaa.

My idea of “respect, maturity, and proper opinionating,” which I imagine is the same as Deb and Kim’s, is not lying and distorting. Harbaugh lies and distorts. That is the problem. Is that difficult to understand? And I don’t read and comment here because Ilike it or think it’s a valuable service. I do it because if I don’t, I am afraid others will read what’s said and believe it, and I think that will hurt the U of O as well as certain individuals whom Harbaugh unfairly targets.

Because I see people repeating lies Harbaugh writes here as well as echoing the general negativity about people that Harbaugh unjustly creates.

And no, I absolutely do not trust that people will use critical thinking skills. First, they often don’t have the facts themselves on which to form an alternative opinion. Second, when faced with the choice of accepting things at face value versus spending mental energy to critically evaluate them, people (including myself) almost always choose the former. It’s our nature.

No, I’m sorry, you do not get to play the “well if it offends you, don’t read it” card. Harbaugh wishes to act as a voice of the community, there are standards of decency and objectivity. Is it ok for me to crack sexist jokes around my Dept? I’m just kidding, a critical thinker can tell I’m joking. I’m not concerned that outsiders will read this blog and think we are fools (we demonstrate that in other ways). This is about how we wish to be as an academic community. A community of thinkers, or a community of ranting tinhats, even if it is funny. In my opinion, this blog has gone way to far as a personality cult and lost a great deal of constructive dialogue.

First, learn the definition of “censor.” Second, I only “dislike” things that are not true/distorting.

“IF this blog has lost ‘a great deal of constructive dialogue’ it would not be a topic of conversation at all, and there would be no comments here.”

Absolutely, categorically, empirically wrong. It is actually very easy to generate interest/discussion without providing any real content; all one has to do is be negative. People naturally grativitate toward negativity/controversy. Have you ever observed the news?

Well, some of what you said was worthy of a response notwithstanding that you weren’t talking to me.

My view of human nature is not dark at all. It is, though, at least partly informed by research in psychology, and the fact that we have a negativity bias is not disputed. I suggest you read Daniel Kahneman if you want to learn more about biases (i.e. pervasive errors in human thinking/judgment).

Take a glance at all of UOM’s recent posts. On the whole, are they usually positive or negative? Harbaugh isn’t dumb; he knows–and chooses to exploit, to the detriment of many–what draws people’s attention.

“What you determine to be negative is actually positive for some. Have you considered that?”

Yes. I’m not passing judgment on negativity per se. I’m just pointng out that human beings are drawn to it whether it’s constructive and valuable or not.

“Who is the arbiter of positive, negative, respectful, decent, proper, helpful, supportive, detrimental and on and on? You see the problem here, right?”

I don’t have an opinion on any of those adjectives except for “detrimental.” And I do think that it is safe to say that the false reporting of facts–which Harbaugh does with extreme regularity (e.g. the other night, he claimed that UO central campus subsidizes UO Law when, in fact, the opposite is true) is detrimental.

I define “detrimental” to mean making the UO a less effective institution. I think that lies can do that, and have done that, in the following ways: wasting people’s time, undermining morale, drawing needless scrutiny toward reasonable policies and decisions, undermining trust in good and hardworking people, unduly creating tension between different groups, and making UO less desirable to external constituents. In addition, lies have a profound negative impact on certain individuals and their families.

Less effective–HOW? Wasted time, undermined morale, undermined trust etc and so forth. How, where when and how did you measure it? Once again, no specifics, just opinion. And from someone who has no supposed judgment on negativity, per se? Sigh.

Questioning things always slows down the effectiveness of institutions. Just think about all of the questions asked at Penn State over the last couple of years, surely that institution is less effective. The problem is when institutions aren’t motivated by profits they can be subject to rent seeking, and when they are subject to rent seeking behavior, the best response is transparency to expose the rent seeking.

The financials for UO, UO foundation, and the AD should be open books for everyone to see. Instead they hide as much as possible. Just open up the books, if we are still a public institution.

“lies have a profound impact on certain individuals and their families.” UOM’s lies about individuals do real harm. It is not humorous or funny. Put yourselves in Dave Frohnmayer’s shoes or Tim Gleason’s or Jim Bean’s or any of the other folks Bill regularly attacks. Read those posts as if it were you he is talking about. Still amusing? Thank you Deb.

Jim Bean did a terrible job planing infrastructure, took a sabattical and never returned to academia.

Fronymeyer seems to mostly look out for himself, and has facilitated the entitled attitude of the AD.

While the attacks might be childish at times, do you really think these folks who left their TT academic jobs for a chance at higher pay as admins and did a poor job need defending?? Do you really think some of them have improved the UO. If so, point out how. If they didn’t make things better, than as admins, they made things worse.

“Fronymeyer seems to mostly look out for himself, and has facilitated the entitled attitude of the AD.”

That’s exactly the problem. This isn’t true at all. Frohnmayer is STILL working on fundraising for UO; he’s STILL working on issues in the legislature; he’s STILL teaching while foregoing salary raises and donating parts of his salary toward undergrad scholarships. And yet you think he “seems to mostly look out for himself.” WHY? Because that’s exactly how Harbaugh has tried, again and again, to portray him, and it bears no relation to reality.

Those things may be true and are to be applauded. However, to accept the salary that he did in the face of the lack of salary increases to staff and faculty, to facilitate the incredible retirement scams of upper administrators, to kowtow to donors on matters such as the Museum of Art and others, and to institute the culture of non-transparency is not to his credit and has contributed as much to disillusion with the institution as have any personal attacks by UO Matters.

It isn’t true that Frohnmeyer facilitated the entitled attitude of the AD (and that’s saying it nicely)? As an emotional defense, you offer nothing to explain anything AD related to prove your opinion, and then you portray Harbaugh as the bad actor.

I hate anonymous posting. It’s probably the lowest point of humanity. So…I’m UNKNOWN above. I don’t write press releases and this does not call for one. And I don’t want a long harangue with you and your followers, Bill.

But here’s the reality: this is the type of stuff that’s wrong. Gleason is not hostile to Freedom of Information and your post and the subsequent comments imply he is. The crap you’ve said about him and others is unfair and unethical.

That’s what you do: you make work of implications and gossip and innuendo and then you all chew on it as if it’s fact. I’ve praised you very publicly before when you were asking hard questions, especially around the Lariviere issues. I’ve worked with you on SAIL and honor you for that.

But as I noted in the other post, all the strong voice is negated when there’s constant misleading or simply vicious information like this post. The stuff you say about people, the attempts to disembowel and ruin careers, the side remarks that you and dog and old dog and anonymous, etc all peck to death has no value except as venom. You have your followers. But so many (most of whom are not politically active or in the JH culture) are simply turned off by this and see it as ruining the culture and opportunity at this University. There are better ways to solve problems and make things happen.

I agree with Deb, yes the admins fail to tell us all the information. But has this blog helped the communication lines? Or does everyone keep the discussion to themselves in order not to be the focus of Harbaugh’s muckracking. I realize that most of the fan club here will call me a troll, but the level of immaturity displayed by Harbaugh’s blog insults the idea of academic discourse. If you wish to post facts and analysis, great, gossip and sarcasm are simply unacceptable if you wish to be the “unofficial” organ.

Journalists don’t get it, I guess. Every successful media organization is concerned with generating/maintaining their audience. I’m happy to see a laugh here and there to get the information UOM provides. You do have to be clever to get the humor, I suppose. This is university community, though, so most should be able to get it. Among the most glorious of universities in all the world, actually. (Gottfredson said that once, or will say it.)

Thanks for the post, Deb. It’s nice to know who allies with the likes of Gleason. (he’s kinda smarmy in my mind, but whatever. lol )

But, Gleason likes to think that they are training student for jobs that don’t even exist yet. That’s beautiful, man. What a poetic brand management ploy. Next, he’ll be saying, “You can do anything with a journalism degree.”

Ok, we need to hear from our journalism professors here. While we all enjoy the insults, digs and snarky posts on UOMatters, does this blog seriously believe it ranks as “professional” journalism. A standard that would seem to require (demand) *objective* reporting of news and issues. I need a reality check from Bill, do you believe you are a serious journalist? Or is this just a gossip site?

Where, in the US, can one actually find *objective* reporting? The RG? Around the O? I’m no fan of snark, but seems to me there’s no one else–including in the J-School–who cares enough to figure out what’s really going on and/or dig up some facts. UOM is therefore providing a journalistic service. Imperfect? Yes. But so’s every other media outlet I know of.

UO admins (like Gottfredson himself) like to think that by ignoring UOM it goes away or does not matter or isn’t “serious.” They have yet to figure out how to best respond to it, even though the best response (that would be transparency guys) is immediately available to them. “We’re the best public institution the world has ever seen.” “UOM isn’t serious journalism.” Neither statement reflects the truth, and as long as our admins fail to engage in what is true (e.g., that the UO is hemorrhaging, that UOM is about as serious as journalism gets around here whether you like or not) UO is effectively leaderless.

Gleason’s puff piece in today’s RG best captures UOM’s contributions… “serving the public interest, to inform a democracy, to use critical thinking and analysis, to tell stories in a coherent and compelling fashion.” Kudos UOM. (I know Gleason doesn’t have much support among his j-school colleagues. Isn’t he the longest serving dean because they’ve repeatedly failed to hire? Bob Welch missed that in all his celebrating, I guess.)

Anon above: you should explain what you mean by ‘doesn’t have much support’. He chose to step down, and even without the ‘repeated fails to hire’ he would have been the longest serving dean. If he chose not to step down, I don’t think there would be a huge movement to oust him. He has called out some faculty who don’t pull their weight, and that has caused some friction. He has raised an absurd amount of money, most of which benefits students (new building, scholarships, support for activities).

Gleason continues to have great support amongst our sojc faculty and industry because of the work he’s done. He’s shown vision and integrity at a time when we needed it most. So stop this nonsense, UOM. Your being asked to speak to the SPJ was disappointing (at the least) and wrongheaded. What you do is nowhere near journalism.

Your value as leader and truth caller has been consistently devalued. Why? Snark, silliness, miscommunication, untruths, slander, lies. It’s meant to degrade and confuse. No one except your posse cares about what you churn out because the agenda is you, not the truth. That’s sad. And most emphatically, it’s not journalism.

UOM breaks stories and raises issues that no one else is raising. If the other sources covered this same material, UOM would be redundant and pointless. As it is, it’s the only source that attempts to get at much of the stuff that goes on around here that I personally feel is vital to know.

Whether or not Bill Harbaugh is a journalist or UO Matters is a “serious” publication is irrelevant. The First Amendment and the Oregon law derived from it confers freedom of speech to each and every person in this country. Each one of us has the right to know what our public institutions are doing by virtue of our citizenship. Those who exercise this right, such as Harbaugh, preserve it.

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